Description

The walnut console is basically a rectangular cabinet with three flat sides having recessed panels and the fourth side holding the tiered organ keyboards flanked by arrays of toggle switches. The foot pedals are contained in an attached oak box, and the walnut bench with rectangular top having molded edges is supported by two wide urn-shaped plank legs. The keyboard and switches are flanked by wings carved with Renaissance scrolls and anthemions. Scrolled brackets support the keyboards.

Music was an antidote for the industrial age. In the era before radios and phonographs were available, wealthy Americans experienced refined music in the intimate setting of the home through installations of mammoth organs. Before 1930 as many as thirty-eight Aeolian organs were installed in houses on Fifth Avenue’s millionaire’s row. The Aeolian Company, founded in 1887 as the Aeolian Organ & Music Company, was a manufacturer of player organs and pianos. The manufacture of residence or "chamber" organs to provide entertainment in the mansions of millionaires was an extremely profitable undertaking, and Aeolian virtually cornered the market in this trade, freeing them from the tight competition of church-organ building with its narrow profit margins.

The phonograph was one of the main factors in the demise of the player piano, although an attempt of the company to engage in the production of church and concert organs resulted in important installations at Duke University Chapel and Longwood Gardens. These successes were undermined by the Great Depression, during which the organ division was merged with the E.M. Skinner Organ Co. (founded in 1901) to become the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Co., a leading builder until its closure in 1972.

Provenance

From 1964
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, acquired in 1964. [1]

Notes:
[1] In the early 1960s Charles H. Babcock (1899-1967) gave the house and its contents to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection (Reynolda House, Inc.) on December 18, 1964 with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.

Inscription, Period, Culture

Inscription:

“AEOLIAN PIPE ORGAN / No. 1404 / THE AEOLIAN CO. / NEW YORK.” (on small white plaque [nameplate] attached at the upper right of the console keyboard); “2014” (carved on bottom of bench)